


Symptoms Vary

by ezlebe



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Coming Out, M/M, Off-screen Necromancy, Olfactophilia, Panic Attacks, Pining, Sharing a Bed, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:55:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26276005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ezlebe/pseuds/ezlebe
Summary: Eddie can hear their laughter the moment he enters the restaurant, before he even reaches the hostess, ears immediately pricking up at voices that shouldn’t be so familiar. He scratches awkwardly under his chin as she leads him down to the table, feeling out a patch of stubble under his fingers and trying not to think too hard about if any of his old friends will be able to see it – see that he’s different than he used to be and not just in the meaningless ways to do with age.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 42
Kudos: 188





	1. Chapter 1

Eddie can hear their laughter the moment he enters the restaurant, before he even reaches the hostess, his ears pricking up at voices that shouldn’t be so familiar. He scratches awkwardly under his chin as she leads him down to the table, feeling out a patch of stubble under his fingers and trying not to think too hard about if any of his old friends will be able to see it – see that he’s different than he used to be and not just in the meaningless ways to do with age.

He knows exactly who they are the moment he sees them, smiling back at him from the table: Bill and Mike. They've grown different in their own ways, greyer and tired, but nowhere near the same. He would be able to tell, he thinks, because he usually can – his hackles go up whenever he meets someone else like him, an involuntary reflex that leads to a stare across an office or a restaurant, or even sometimes an entire block.

He hears more familiar voices far off and looks away from the fish tank, peeking over his shoulder, to watch as three new faces enter the dining area. He frowns when a man who is _certainly_ Richie Tozier picks up the mallet near the gong, opening his mouth to protest and incidentally making eye contact with Richie, only to flinch when the mallet slams the gong without any more warning than that half-second pause.

“This meeting of the Losers’ Club has officially begun!”

Eddie rolls his eyes, briefly glancing at Bill and Mike before he gestures at a loss.

He takes a step forward to join the expected hugs, only to freeze when he smells something _incredible_ and consequently is jerked around in the rush. It’s the sort of scent that he recognizes is from a person, somatic and living, but aside from that… He furrows his brows slightly and finds himself opening his mouth with his next inhale, masking it with an awkward grin while trying to get more air, and realizes with less surprise than he should feel that it’s _Richie_.

Holy shit, he smells amazing.

Eddie manages to get a chair between them, rationalizing that it’s for Stan, while trying to ignore how the monster inside him wants desperately to rub up against the fucking Trashmouth in ways that aren’t even that sexy. It’s not an entirely unfamiliar feeling, as he had pretty much the same mindset last time they saw each other, but that’s a little too painful to think about when it’s been the same amount of time since they’ve _remembered_ each other.

He turns to Mike as conversation picks up and does his best to play it normal, not looking at Richie too much or, god forbid, breathing too deep in that direction. He does start to feel perplexingly more relaxed than usual, an assumed permanent tension between his shoulder blades fading to barely a twinge by the arrival of the appetizers, and nearly takes some scallion pancake before remembering the threat of debilitating anemia.

“– But Audra, my uh, wife,” Bill says, reaching out to pick up a slice of shrimp toast. “Prefers England. Are any of y-you married?”

Mike huffs slightly, as if the idea is funny. “Nope.”

“Divorcing,” Bev says tightly, but she doesn’t seem ashamed about it.

“…Almost, once,” Eddie admits, scratching at a seam on the table with a curl of his nose. “But something in me knew it was wrong.”

Richie is oddly still for a beat, a shot held halfway to his mouth, then suddenly downs it with a deep breath and slams the glass to the table. “You know me, Big Bill – I can’t be tied down.”

Ben oddly nods along, leaning across the table and clinking his beer against Richie’s glass with a smile that’s a little _too_ commiserating. If Eddie remembers anything about Ben, it’s that he’s a sap with a penchant for yearning and not particularly subtle about it; he can’t recall even a minute of _Richie_ pining after someone, unless Eddie’s supposed to count his own goddamn mother.

He looks down at the food as the waiter sets it onto the turnstile, then takes a pair of offered shots, then has a beer, then baijiu, and consequently ends up caving to an invitation from across the empty chair. He isn’t sure how it all really happens, conversation jumping from topic to topic, but somehow he ends up easily overpowering Richie at an arm-wrestling match while shouting desires masked as jokes; he consequently isn’t quite thinking when he takes the opportunity to draw the startled Richie into a headlock, instinctively squeezing in close to blend their scents together in a way that is a little too heady.

Fuck, he’s never experienced this at any time in the twenty years since the bite – not with Myra, not with the scant bar hookups, not with the uneasy almosts from work. He has no clue how to control it; how to stop _thinking_ about it. He hastily moves back to his seat and tries to simply be rational: it doesn’t matter what it is, because Richie’s so straight that he is _paid_ to be offensive about it.

A less reasonable voice immediately counters that Richie never seemed to reject opportunities for a little platonic cuddling.

* * *

It turns out Eddie doesn’t need to worry about the latest addition to an old problem. How he feels about anything kind of becomes entirely moot once Mike admits that nostalgia was less than five percent of why he invited them back up to fucking Derry.

He knows that he should say something about the bite. He could make everything that much worse if It gets under his skin and he loses control, but he can’t quite open his mouth whenever the opportunity rises; he doesn’t want anyone to be afraid of _him_. He doesn’t know if it will make much of a difference, anyway, after he nearly gets a tentacle shoved down his throat and a knife _is_ shoved through his cheek; he cowers just the same, because the thing inside him has never really been this terrible autonomous monster he pretends it to be, repressing it with questionable tonics and stern mantras – the fucking thing is really just goddamn _him_.

It seems that when worse comes to worst, he’ll always be that little coward Kaspbrak.

* * *

”Go,” Eddie wheezes, watching the others disappear up the cavern over Richie’s shoulder.

Richie inhales a stuttering breath, perhaps some attempt to speak, only to end up shaking his head hard.

“Be fine,” Eddie lies, reaching out to push weakly while attempting a breath. Richie’s scent is panicked, but no less incredible; he thinks he’s realized what it means, if too late, but he’ll savor it all the same these last few moments.

“Eds,” Richie says, just as It screams out a taunt up the cavern. He flinches toward Eddie, pressing harder into the jacket, “I – I can’t leave you. I won’t – not if – if… ”

“Still be here,” Eddie mutters, pushing again, satisfied when Richie stumbles to his feet, swaying but upright. “You gotta help, Trashmouth. Finish him.”

Richie’s face folds into a grimace at the joke, lips trembling and nowhere near a real smile, but he finally turns on his heel. His hands are opening and closing at his sides, covered in blood, and he walks first, shuffling slow, then abruptly stumbles into a jog at a monstrous cackle.

Eddie watches Richie rush up the cave, angling his head up against the stone in desperate attempt to keep him in sight for as long as possible. He closes his eyes with a wheezing cough, trying to accept that he’s really dying as the wracking pain gradually cedes to a prickling sort of tingle, presumably the beginnings of his whole body shutting down. He shakily pulls back Richie’s jacket from his chest, looking down at the wound and prepared to see viscera, maybe even his own _lungs_ , only to instead find the grievous hole underneath rapidly closing over beneath the stained tatters of his shirt.

He drops Richie’s jacket and skates his hand across the new skin in disbelief, a hollow ringing between his ears, but then the screams of the other Losers hit and he quickly reaches back to shove himself up from the stone with a clack of claws as his control stretches, then snaps, another form bursting from under his skin and testing the healing bones and sinews of his body. He sprints out of the cave on all fours, spurred more by adrenaline and fury than any real confidence, and vaults up to snap his teeth around Pennywise’s monstrous throat. He listens to It shriek in shock, biting down harder, then retreats some when one of Its hands tries to swipe him up from the ground. He claws at Its belly, leaving behind streaks of black, gushing blood, then darts back through Its legs to jump onto It’s back and bite down at a bulging shoulder.

“What the fuck is _that_ , Mike!?” Richie yells, his reeking panic just a little hurtful.

“I don’t know!” Mike shouts back, faltering, then shifting back in an audible stumble. “It looks like a, uh – a werewolf?”

Richie sputters loudly, his incredulous gesture almost audible. “No shit, it looks like a werewolf!”

“It’s not attacking us, at least?” Ben says, though he’s definitely retreating some by the shifting echo of his voice.

Eddie drops back to the ground and dodges a frankly worrying twist of Pennywise’s head; he has no idea if the deadlights can effect him like this, but he _knows_ that no one else would think to help him out of them while he’s the wolf.

“Ignore it! We have to keep y-yelling at Pennywise,” Bill says, his voice fading briefly when he turns away, then raising again when he steps forward to look back at It. “You’re an imposter – ”

Bev clears her throat with a hacking cough and joins back in, too. “Nothing but a weakling”

“Your makeup sucks, you alien fuck,” Richie shouts, his voice maybe a little sharper than seconds earlier, but no less sincere in its mocking. “Ronald McDonald did it better!”

“You’ve been doing this forever and have nothing to show for it!” Ben adds, at the same moment Eddie finally manages to force Pennywise into a stumble. “You couldn’t even kill a couple loser middle schoolers!”

“No one is scared of _you_ ,” Mike shouts, his belief almost palpable in the tone of confident anger. “No one knows you even exist! You’re just a joke!”

Eddie soon finds himself crouched on the stone floor of the cavern, a taste he’s _really_ not thinking about on his tongue and panting hard next to Richie while Mike reaches inside Pennywise’s shrunken form. He reaches out, somewhat warily, when everyone else does, carefully crushing the ugly beating heart with the rest of them while hoping Richie’s shaking is from adrenaline and not because of how Eddie’s paw is curled around his hand.

The heart disintegrates, pieces of it floating in a defiance of gravity, as a collective tension seems to release from them all at once.

“Eddie… _Eddie_ ,” Richie gasps, pulling away and voice abruptly cracking, as he stumbles back down into the cavern where Eddie came from and unknowingly leaving him behind. “Eddie?!”

“Richie!” Eddie calls back, hastily going after him and forcing the remains of the wolf back beneath his skin with an uncomfortable creak and pop of bone. He ignores the stares of the others, feeling them bear down heavily on his back, and concentrates instead on Richie’s apparent confusion. “Hey, dipshit!”

Richie practically shrieks when he turns around, but it’s less terror and more surprise, eyes going wide behind his broken glasses. “ _Eddie_?”

“Yeah, man,” Eddie says, staring back evenly and feeling his heart start to slow – at least until a huge stalagmite spontaneously shatters next him and he feels a scream catch in his throat. He hurriedly reaches out to grab Richie by his ugly, bloody shirt. “Fuck, we have to get out of here!”

“Through here! _”_ Mike shouts, leading them through the shattering rocks toward the sewer to the cistern.

Richie falls in behind Eddie when they all rush to squeeze through a particularly narrow passage, swiping unsubtly at Eddie’s back across the surely enormous holes in his hoodie. “H-how?”

“Explain later,” Eddie snaps, reaching back and curling a hand around Richie’s wrist, tugging him hard and urging him to go climb ahead of Eddie into the tunnel with a shove. “Go!”

The house implodes in a deafening shudder at almost the instant they collectively step off the porch, collapsing into itself in a dirty heap. The only thing left standing is the fence around it, rusty and spiked, now guarding little more than a hole in the ground.

“I know where we should go next,” Mike says, after the silence stretches, nodding to himself then turning to walk down the street.

Eddie stares when everyone starts to follow, a little inexplicably put-out that no one is even going to bother to ask. He wonders if they think it was just an It thing, which… would be sort of nice, if it fucking were, but he can definitely still feel that vaguely feral tension under his skin, so he’s pretty damned sure it’s permanent.

It becomes clear where Mike is leading them about ten minutes into the walk, familiar roads sparking memories, and a cliff edge rising in front of them with a new barrier and a warning sign. It’s a shame that none of the other Losers can fucking read, starting to throw off the outer layers of their clothes in evident preparation to be goddamn stupid.

“Absolutely fucking not,” Eddie says, crossing his arms and staring down the cliff drop into the quarry. He shakes his head, bodily turning away from Richie’s crooked grin – he will _not_ be moved by this amazing-smelling jackass. “You’re all fucking _idiots_. We’re forty!”

“Come on, Eds,” Bev says, promptly darting forward for a running jump, just like she had the first time she joined them to swim.

Eddie stares straight ahead until he hears the splash, then her laugh, before peeking over the edge. He closes his eyes for a beat, then grudgingly starts to tug at the zipper on his tattered jacket. “I hate you all.”

The cold water is a shock, enveloping him soundly like a cocoon, and he would never admit it, but it does feel a little cleansing in the least literal sense. He scrubs at the worst of the gunk lingering on his skin, washing away unsettling grimy spots, distracted when Richie tries to play shark and tug him under the water. He laughs weakly and plays along with the others for a while, circling each other in exhausted versions of the games they liked as kids.

He ends up sitting with Richie on the rocks, drying out in the cool air against the rising sun. It’s outright nostalgic – it makes him think of the dozens of other times they’d sit to the side bickering while the others joked and told them to stop arguing, especially Stan.

 _Fuck_ , he misses Stan. He’s positive Stan would have agreed with him that it would’ve been nice to have a shower by now, even if they had still come here.

“Are you a werewolf?” Richie asks, non sequitur and voice a little hoarse; uncertain, but mercifully lacking any of the sort of fear that had been in the cavern.

“Surprise,” Eddie mutters, running a hand through his wet hair, then leaning into it his palm, peeking through the bend of his elbow to look at Richie with a grimace. “I – I know I should’ve said something.”

Richie’s jaw drops, like he had really expected a denial, despite the overwhelming evidence. “What the _fuck_ , man?”

“Am I supposed to say sorry?” Eddie snaps, sitting up and reaching to shove at Richie’s damp shoulder. “You asked!”

Richie sways with the pressure, then his eyes drop to Eddie’s middle. “Does that…So. Are you immortal?”

“What?” Eddie says, briefly rolling his lower lip to bite down. “What do you mean?”

“Dude,” Richie mutters, reaching out and tugging fitfully at the open hole in Eddie’s shirt.

Eddie frowns deeply, looking down at the hole and tempted to finish the job, tear the shirt off and drop them in a dumpster, but then he’d be walking to the Town House half-naked at… whatever fucking time it is right now. Dawn. “It didn’t cut my fucking head off or anything.”

Richie immediately laughs, but it’s also kind of the worst sound he’s ever made. “Thank fuck for that.”

“Oh,” Bev says, walking up behind Richie, her eyes darting up and down Eddie. “Are we asking now?”

“Yeah,” Richie says, eyes moving to make brief contact before turning around to look at Bev over his shoulder. “And he is.”

“Wow,” Bev says, arms looped around one knee, leaning in and digging her chin into her forearm. “How did that happen?”

Eddie doesn’t want to talk about another monster that tried to kill him less than an hour after defeating the one from his childhood; he doesn’t want talk about how he found out in the worst way possible cocaine puts werewolves especially out of their minds, or how it took him ten years to run outside again. He doesn’t want to talk about any of it, so takes a deep breath and settles on the most boring answer. “Central Park is hazardous in more ways than the obvious.”

Richie drops his head with a snort.

* * *

Eddie stands at the door of his room, exhaling hard while setting his hand on the knob. He can do this – he can walk in there and… And not fucking shower, because that mullet-wearing motherfucker stole his goddamn shower curtain in the most traumatic way possible. _Shit_.

“You want to swap?” Richie asks, sauntering up beside Eddie to lean on the yellowed wallpaper just next to the jamb. He waves his fingers at the door and the room beyond it. “Ben and Bev said Bowers, uh, surprised you. Totally get if you like, I guess, don’t want to stay in there.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, then shoves the key in the lock, forcing the door open with a wide swing that causes it to hit the wall. He peers back and forth, finding it ostensibly empty and bearing no strange scents or sounds – though, that had been the most awful part: Bowers hadn’t smelled _at all._ “He stabbed me. Actually. Too.”

Richie turns with a start, expression dropping while his eyes go wide, glancing up and down Eddie as if he might see it. “W _hat_?”

“In the face,” Eddie says, gesturing tiredly up at his cheek.

Richie stares at the spot a long moment, then his throat visibly bobs with swallow. “Healed up good, though?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, not going to admit that maybe he hadn’t been sure it really happened, even though it had been how he got the knife. It had been the first time, since the bite, he got hurt like that, and then it just… disappeared; the injury seemed wholly imagined until he looked in the mirror after escaping Bowers to see a line of blood where the knife had gone all the way through. “I guess I… I heal fast.”

Richie responds with a weak smirk, reaching out and poking Eddie through the hole in his shirt with two fingers. “No shit, bud? Hadn’t noticed.”

The room is chilly when they finally cross the threshold, getting colder the further in they go, and Eddie grimaces when he peeks in the bathroom to confirm the broken window he’d forgotten. It’ll warm up as the sun rises, but right now: “You can’t take this, Rich.”

“Because you left the AC on?” Richie jokes, peering in and slightly crowding behind Eddie, then letting out a low whistle. “Damn.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, shoving Richie back so he can step out, pulling the bathroom door firmly shut. He shivers slightly, briefly trying to hug the damp hoodie around him, but it only makes the feeling worse. “That’s where he got out.”

“Well, fuck, Eds,” Richie says, looking at the bathroom door with a scrunched nose, then tracing the floor back to Eddie’s bags on the bed. He clears his throat, mouth opening, then clears it again louder with a weird sort of smile. “We could share?”

“Okay, yeah,” Eddie says quickly, hearing his voice pitch high and immediately knowing that he sounds a little too eager about it.

Richie doesn’t seem to notice, thankfully, probably too tired by the solid beat it takes before he starts to nod. He reaches out and grabs one of Eddie’s bags with an exaggerated drop of his shoulder. “Shit, Eds, what do you put in here – your mom’s boulder holder?”

Eddie takes a deep, indignant breath. “She’s fucking dead, Richie!”

“Even more reason for you to carry around a keepsake!” Richie crows, lifting the suitcase over his head like a caveman and bounding out the door, hitting the wall on the other side with a loud smack.

“Don’t break my shit,” Eddie says, grabbing the other one and his toiletry bag. He pauses at the doorway for a beat, looking back, then shuts the door – good riddance, and all the better, since this is giving him just _one_ night of sleeping next to Richie and his stupid scent.

He shoves past Richie into the bathroom, stripping his torn clothes off and throwing his hoodie and shirt into the small trash. He steps under the spray while wishing he’d brought something stronger than a loofa, maybe some steel wool, and hates that this is something he’s had to do multiple times in his life, not to mention the last fucking _day_. He takes a deep breath when he gets out and looks down at his chest, swallowing hard, then turns to look at his back in the mirror, but nothing is there – not even a scar. It’s just like his cheek, clear and perfectly unmarred, and fuck, _is_ he immortal? Has he avoided coffee for the last twenty years for nothing?

Richie makes a show of miming dramatically how he hadn’t touched the bed with his disgusting sewer water body when Eddie opens the door, then tips his head with a wider grin while slipping past into the bathroom. “Make yourself comfy, Eds.”

Eddie drops down onto the mattress as the door closes, palming his phone and watching the shadow shift under the bathroom door. He hears the jingle of the shower curtain, water switching on, then slowly leans sideways and gives in to an urge that’s been sitting at his center for days, slumping down to press his face into Richie’s wrinkled pillow and inhaling deep. Holy shit, he’s actually being this person right now – no, he’s being that fucking stalker _monster_ , taking advantage of a friend’s kindness to savor in a crush that he’s pathetically held onto to varying degrees since he was like _nine_.

The worst of it is Eddie doesn’t even realize he’s falling asleep to it until he’s waking back up, blinking blearily up at Richie, who’s staring down with an unreadable expression, excepting the twitch of confusion at the corner of his mouth. He absently squeezes the pillow that he’s still wrapped around, then freezes; fucking _shit_. “What the hell are you looking at?”

Richie raises an eyebrow, then a half-grin pulls at his mouth. “You that tired, Eds?”

“No, I – ” Eddie takes a breath, shoving up from the bed with one arm and trying to find some distraction, only to promptly realize that he _is_ fucking exhausted. “Yeah.”

“I was using that one, but you can have it,” Richie says, tugging the other pillow from Eddie’s side of the bed and emphatically fluffing it. He drops it and walks over to the door, tapping at the light, only to stare at the window when it does nothing but emphasize the fact it’s morning. “Lookie there – sun’s a’chasin’ us, pardner.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Eddie says, shifting to get under the covers with his chin dropped, trying to hide a flush he can feel up his neck.

“I am blitzed,” Richie says, needlessly bouncing into the other side like a brat, then tugging the comforter up to his chin while throwing his glasses. “Is it true that sleeplessness is like being drunk? Because if it is, this is my best drunk.”

“Depends,” Eddie mutters, digging his face back in Richie’s pillow with a sigh; he can already feel himself dozing off again, eyelids dropping, hastened by the comforting thud of a familiar heartbeat.

He wakes sometime later to a pitchy series of gasps, uneven and subdued, too close to his ear and making the hair at the back of his neck stand up. It takes him a pair of seconds to narrow down where he is – Derry, the Townhouse, Richie’s room. The noise soon proves to be from Richie himself, curled away as he is, his heart beating too fast, and Eddie realizes with some dismay that the gasps might actually be sobs, badly muted by the pillow that Richie is clutching in an apparent nightmare.

“Rich,” Eddie whispers, gently nudging at a broad shoulder; the muscle jumps under his fingertips, but Richie doesn’t otherwise move, so he does it again, a little harder. “Richie, _hey_.”

Richie abruptly rolls over, eyes wild, wide, and scared; his expression overall far too similar to how it had been under Neibolt. “Eds!?” He croaks, his hand suddenly gripping tight almost to the point of pain around Eddie’s bicep. “Eddie, are you —”

“Yeah, hey,” Eddie says, hesitantly curving his hand over Richie’s and squeezing around his knuckles. “I… I’m here.”

Richie goes silent for a long time, but not back to sleep; his eyes stay half-open and staring, hand squeezing intermittently at Eddie’s arm, while slowly his breathing evens out to something less agitated. “You know… what’s kind of funny?” He eventually whispers, his hoarse voice ungently breaking the quiet. “I used to have this nightmare _I_ was a werewolf.”

Eddie swallows hard, but his voice is still a little rasping when he opens his mouth. “Yeah?”

“But it wasn’t like a real werewolf, it was like – ” Richie goes quiet another few seconds, then exhales, stiffly letting go of Eddie’s arm and tapping at his own chest. “It felt like I had a monster inside me, no offense, but you know… It was just me.”

A tense silence settles when it becomes clear that was apparently the ending to the story. Eddie offers a low noise, a little curious and a little annoyed, trying to get _any_ sort of further explanation. A joke, maybe? It doesn’t sound like one, but it is Richie.

“Gay me,” Richie elaborates tightly, his next exhale some approximation of a squeaky laugh. “Which is, you know, still… still just me.”

Eddie makes an effort to huff, carefully ignoring a sudden, clawing eagerness to roll over on top of Richie like a freak to comfort him. “Right, yeah. Okay.”

“It’s not as cool as being a real werewolf,” Richie says, a forced sort of wistfulness to his tone. “I know.”

Eddie stares hard at the ceiling, tracing down a crack while dragging his teeth sharp against his lower lip. “I guess I have two monsters inside me, by that really fucked up logic.”

Richie immediately goes quiet, his fingers twitching beside Eddie’s on the bedspread for a torturous minute, until he abruptly exhales an exaggerated scoff. “Goddamn, just steal _all_ the thunder, Eds.”

Eddie hears the laugh before he realizes it’s him, breaking the whispering quiet of the room with a sharp crack.

It’s not the reaction Richie wants, clear enough, so thankfully Eddie didn’t add that it’s really _fantastic_ that Richie’s gay, too, actually, because he smells so amazing that Eddie wants to rub up against him like a fucking animal so they share scents and everyone knows it – Richie would flee the bed with a comment that sounds like a joke but is absolutely serious. It’s not as if suddenly, or probably not at all that suddenly, being interested in men equals Richie being interested in _Eddie_ , let alone any desire to shoulder the monster shit that comes with him.

Richie abruptly clears his throat, offering an annoying little tap at Eddie’s shoulder to signal both his bolstering mood and escalating obnoxiousness. “So when you said earlier that you didn’t get married – ”

“That was mostly the – the werewolf monster part,” Eddie admits, glancing sideways to Richie and then looking back at the ceiling with a grimace. “I’d probably be in a really fucked up marriage right now if it weren’t for how convinced I was that I’d eat Myra in her sleep.”

Richie exhales, not quite a laugh. “Shit.”

“My mom loved her,” Eddie says, mouth twisting slightly at the uncomfortable merging of childhood memories with adult experiences. “They loved discussing every _delicate_ little thing they saw in me.”

Richie moves slightly, shoulder shifting and arm lining up to press all the way down Eddie’s side.

“I kind of have to thank that coked up wolf,” Eddie says, a little ashamed – it seems his whole life, it’s taken monsters to give him courage to stand up and deny his mom. “I don’t think without it, I’d have had the courage to get myself out of – of all that.”

“You could have done it,” Richie says, absurdly confident and tapping again, now a little further up Eddie’s shoulder with a slightly heavy thud against his collarbone. “…But just to be clear – you don’t want to eat _me_ in my sleep?”

“No, dude,” Eddie says, briefly glancing sideways only to get caught by unexpectedly soft and unfocused eyes. “The wolf loves you.” He realizes a beat too late what that might sound like, so exhales in a rush: “… _Guys_. It’s like a pack or something; I don’t fucking know.”

“Right,” Richie says, gesturing vaguely with two fingers and a short click of his tongue. “I mean I figured. Since you didn’t.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, choosing not to repress the grin he feels pulling at his lips. “It can still change its mind.”

“Is it actually a different you,” Richie asks, his voice a little quieter, more serious. “Like a wolf-Eddie?”

Eddie stares hard at the ceiling as thoughts briefly whir, then faintly shakes his head. “Not really,” he says, defying twenty years of mantras he used to convince himself it was just some kind of a chronic disease; it is, in a way, and that’s still terrifying, but it was never anything else but him. He can now admit that much. “I thought it was, for a long time, but it’s more like… trying to control my temper, I guess?”

Richie hums in an exaggerated understanding. “Which you suck at.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Eddie says, reaching sideways to make show of shoving Richie away, though he doesn’t really put much pressure into it. “You haven’t even fucking _seen_ my temper, Richie.”

Richie quietly cracks up, briefly rolling heavier over onto Eddie. “Oh man, here I thought I _only_ saw your temper.”

“Dumbass,” Eddie says, eyes dropping for a few seconds to fix on the bare skin of Richie’s collarbone, peeking out of a stretched out shirt collar. He takes a breath, looking up, finding Richie’s eyes oddly startled, and makes a point to scowl. “You’re just oversensitive.”

Richie exaggeratedly gasps, both hands drawing up to press at his chest in askance. He rolls off Eddie and away, his dramatic, unintelligible mutters accompanied by more embellished gesturing, until he’s falling out of the bed with an honest yelp. “Shit!”

“Dumbass,” Eddie repeats, briefly leaning across the bed under the guise of taking a look, but really just inhaling deep; fuck, all he can smell is an undeniable _them_. It’s so stupid good that he entertains a brief, insane idea to stuff the sheet into his luggage, but the potency probably wouldn’t last through the airport.

“Eds?” Richie says, one arm groping at the side table, clumsily grabbing glasses, and soon focused eyes are peering up from the floor. “You okay? You kind of just... froze.”

Eddie stares back for a beat, totally caught, then is saved by a rolling, ravenous ache in his stomach. “I just – I realized I’m really goddamn hungry.”

“Oh, man,” Richie says, his expression slowly pinching inward until he gives a loud groan. “Me too.”

Eddie reluctantly climbs out of the bed, running his hands through his hair while exhaling hard. He wanders into the bathroom, kicking the door closed behind him, and leans forward into the sink with both hands curling around the edge of it. He stares hard at his reflection, hating the flush over his cheeks, the curl across his mouth; nothing even happened – they touched for a whole couple minutes and Richie made an idiot of himself, so why is he so fucking _happy_?

“Are you seriously taking a shower?” Richie whines, joined by an unidentifiable thunk against the door. “Again?”

“No,” Eddie snaps, though he thinks about it, half-sure that grey water is permanently sunk into his skin, but he’s… going a little crazy, and it is, unsurprisingly, all Richie’s fault. He doesn’t want to wash the scent away until he absolutely has to, which is likely going to be whenever he goes to sleep for the second time tonight, resentfully alone in New York. “Getting dressed.”

“Oh, uh,” Richie mutters, joined by a few odd thunks on the other side of the door. “Me, too.”

Eddie allows a smile to himself in the mirror, a little visibly melancholy, then reaches for his bag to grab his toothbrush. He can have a few more hours, at least, of indulging this clingy, belligerent nostalgia. He finds Richie waiting on the other side of the door, dressed in clothes that might have been from days earlier, and gestures pointedly behind him for Richie to take his turn while rolling out his Samsonite.

Richie takes less time, brushing his teeth in far under two minutes and visibly sweeping his hair with his fingers while stepping back out into the room. He exhales a breath, certainly minty, but his smile is a little oddly tense while he down himself with both hands. “Tada.”

“Your teeth are all going to rot,” Eddie says, shoving up from the bed with a thought towards the daily despair suffered by Richie’s dentist father. “But I’m too hungry to give a damn – I could eat a fucking horse.”

Richie is quiet a beat, then his brows go up and his grin gets wide. “Have you done that?”

“ _No_ ,” Eddie snaps, stepping past the bed with a scowl. He swipes his wallet from the nightstand and pushes past Richie to make for the door. “What the fuck? I don’t eat farm animals.”

“I mean you _do_ – I do, too,” Richie says, following on his heels with a too earnest tone, tinged with that typical mocking delight that digs comfortably under Eddie’s skin. “Oh wow, I just remembered that time Mike’s grandpa made us watch him kill a sheep – worst day of my life.”

“Really?” Eddie asks flatly, briefly glancing over his shoulder.

Richie doesn’t respond for a few seconds, stomping down the stairs behind Eddie. “Maybe fourth or fifth.”

Eddie shakes his head, exhaling a laugh he hopes sounds more of a sigh. “Do you want to get the others?”

“I knocked on doors while you were taking a year to get dressed,” Richie says, lifting a hand and spinning a finger to point above, presumably at rooms over their heads. “Ben and Bev weren’t in the same room yesterday, but totally are _now_ , and Bill has apparently been struck by a muse.”

Eddie stares for a beat, “He’s what?”

“He’s on the phone with his wife, some director, and teleworking a shitty ending, I guess,” Richie leans against the bannister with raised brows, lifting a hand to gesture between Eddie and himself. “So you… cool to go to dinner with only li’l old me?”

Eddie rolls his lips together, knowing exactly what he wants but not quite sure where to find it. “What if we just go to the store – like the Shop'n Save?”

Richie is quiet for a beat, then drops back and shoves both hands into his pockets with a pressed-mouth smile. “Sure?”

“Think it’s still in the same place?” Eddie asks, turning back around while pulling out his keys; he wishes the Cadillac wasn’t stuck in a shop, languishing in insurance quote purgatory.

“Not a clue,” Richie mutters, suddenly and weirdly subdued, trailing behind while they make their way out to the parking lot.

The Shop'n Save is in the same place, but it’s decidedly _not_ the same place.

“A Hannaford?” Richie says, exaggeratedly disbelieving, then lifting a fist to mock anger. “Damn franchises.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, shoving the keys in his pocket while reaching out and grabbing Richie’s arm to pull his hand back down. “You don’t have the ground to stand on about selling out.”

Richie fumbles out a laugh, deliberately stepping on Eddie’s heel in their next steps. “That’s just rude, Spaghetti Head.”

The inside is bright and cheery, mingling with droning music and the low roar of harried families. He grabs a small hand basket while glancing back and forth across the row of cashiers, then up across the signs; okay, the deli is still at the back. He thinks he can already smell it, despite everything else in here – savory and salty, practically calling to him like a siren.

He nearly pushes an elderly woman and a pair of teens out of the way when he finds what he’s looking for, a spike of hunger ripping violently through his gut. He yanks his prize off the heated shelf, inhaling deeply and not even embarrassed that Richie might notice it.

“Oh,” Richie says, stepping up next to Eddie with a noticeable rock forward on the balls of his feet. “Rotisserie chicken?”

“This is my favorite fucking food,” Eddie admits, his voice barely above a whisper, because even though this is a stupid fucking secret, it still is one. “It was the first thing I got after I got attacked in Central Park. I ate three.”

“No shit?” Richie looks down at the roast chicken, then back up, laughing a little under his breath. “So this – the _chicken_ is why you wanted to just come to the store, not go out?”

“You can’t get these anywhere else, Richie,” Eddie says, lifting it up to look into the container with a more assessing eye – it doesn’t look burnt, evenly golden across the top. “It’s protein and fat and salt – it’s just so fucking amazing.”

Richie tips his head, nodding with that crooked smile. “They are pretty good.”

“We can still go somewhere else, if you want,” Eddie says, dropping the chicken and tucking it into the basket under his arm. He takes a beat to look at Richie’s face, tracing from his slightly furrowed brow to pinched lips, and gestures vaguely toward downtown with a strange hollowness in his chest. “I think I saw a random as fuck cupcake place down near Keene’s?”

Richie is quiet for a few seconds, then shrugs while glancing in the same direction. “I could go for that trainwreck.”

Eddie’s eyes catch on the grocery section, and he looks down at the single item in his basket with a sigh. “We should probably get some fruit or something, too.”

“Really?” Richie laughs, but he follows along, even stopping in front of a stack of apples with a reach for a plastic bag.

Eddie reluctantly leaves the chicken in the car, suppressing an urge to tear into it for the sake of Richie’s weird mood and the chance of getting rid of it with sugar. He points out the shop while parking in the edge of the still-ongoing festivities for Canal Days, trying not to think about the likelihood of any Derry asshole deciding to break into or steal the car in the middle of the day; he might just fucking eat _them_ and not give a shit.

“I didn’t even notice that place,” Richie says, looking around the street above the meandering crowd with a thoughtful tilt to his mouth. He turns around in a ridiculous circle, gesturing at the bookstore sign above them. “Or half the shit down here – what even is this? Is Derry being gentrified?”

“You were down here, too?” Eddie asks, wondering how close they came to passing each other on that ultimately useless task; it would’ve been nice to have someone else to shove in the way of the leper vomit.

“Uh, yeah,” Richie says, pointing down the block to the indigent Capitol Theatre. “Arcade. I’m actually thinking about asking if they want to, like, sell me their machines? They’re just sitting in there, man; it’s a fucking crime.”

“It’s Derry,” Eddie says dryly, tugging open the door of the cupcake shop and hearing a cheery beep echo in the back. He can’t remember what was here before, but he doubts it was so bright, and definitely not so clean.

“Huh,” Richie says, peering from wall to wall with a pair of wide, theatrical blinks. “This is like… actually legit – look, it’s even got _wall_ _art,_ Eds _._ ”

Eddie snorts quietly, approaching the counter and looking down through the glass at the various stacks of cupcakes. He glances back and forth, between swirling yellow and blue, to dramatically bright red, and finds his attention drawn to a stack of dark chocolate with frosting labeled as being infused with espresso – two things he’s avoided for the last twenty years. He drags his teeth across his lower lip. “You know I haven’t had chocolate in twenty years?”

“ _What_?” Richie says, gasping dramatically, abruptly reaching out and squeezing at Eddie’s forearm in histrionic alarm. “Say it ain’t so!”

Eddie inhales deep in reflex, hoping it seems more like a sigh while glancing briefly down at Richie’s hand. “It’s pretty fucked.”

“Holy shit,” Richie says, releasing Eddie to joyfully tap at the glass just like he used to do at the ice cream parlor; he seems to have gotten caught on some kind of sculpted, rainbow confetti-filled, unicorn-inspired miscreation. “I’m getting that.”

Eddie stares at the supposed food for a few seconds. “Jesus fuck, Rich.”

“Just a minute!” A voice calls from the back, followed by a few scuffling noises and a bright laugh.

The presumed owner is bleached blonde, buttoned up in a gaudy pattern Richie is probably taking notes from, and definitely, definitely not human. They scurry behind the counter with a nervous grin, a scent of sweet-rot following them, and cross their hands one over the other with a sweeping gesture across the cupcake display.

“Hi! So what can – ” The owner pauses mid-word to plainly gawk at Eddie for a few seconds, eyes tracing up and down before looking past him to Richie. They nod weaker, curling slightly in on themselves with a stuttering laugh. “Oh, uh… What can I get you two?”

“Chocolate-espresso,” Eddie says, taking a carefully shallow breath and pointing at the glass, then drifting to gesture at the side in front of Richie. They can clearly tell about him, too. “Unicorn confetti.”

“Of course,” the owner says, hastily grabbing a pair of containers and delicately placing the oversize cupcakes in with a series of stilted nods. They stack them on the other end of the counter in front of Eddie, tapping at the register screen without looking up. “$12.67.”

“What’s uh…?” Richie says, looking at Eddie, then the owner, before his eyes go wide and his shoulders hunch with apparent understanding. “ _Uuuh_ … oh.”

“Keep the change,” Eddie says mildly, trading cash for the cupcakes with a smile, blindly shoving the gaudier container to Richie. He takes a step back, ignoring the way that the owner flinches, just a little, and wonders what they are to be scared of him with so little reason, but it’s not exactly his place to judge with how eager _he_ is to leave. “Thank you.”

“Have a nice day!” The owner says, their farewell just a little squeaky.

Eddie whistles shortly for Richie to hang back a few storefronts down, grudgingly sinking down into a clean-looking steel bench; it’s definitely covered in who knows what, but he is not about to let Richie and rainbow frosting let loose in his car, even a rental.

“So were they…” Richie takes a breath, dropping next to Eddie with an oomph. “Like you?”

Eddie shakes his head, looking down at the espresso cupcake and feeling defiant when unpopping the container; he turns it around, looking at the edges, and catches the undeniable shape of a chocolate chunk. “Something else.”

Richie noticeably freezes, hands stilling at the edge of the plastic container.

“Not like Pennywise,” Eddie says, glancing over catch the edginess of Richie’s expression, watching it relax a little and confirming that was what he was part of the worry. “Just not a werewolf.”

Richie laughs weakly while popping open the container, then abruptly leans in close, pressing into Eddie’s shoulder with a low, melodramatic gasp. “Like maybe a _vampire_?”

“I don’t think so?” Eddie says, looking back down and resisting an urge to pluck the chocolate out of the cupcake. The entire thing is chocolate and coffee, so he can’t get rid of any it; he _has_ to just eat it. “They kind of smell like blood, but this was sort of like… death?”

Richie taps at the top of his container for a few annoying beats. “What did It smell like?”

“Uh…” Eddie grimaces uneasily, because Pennywise had smelled exactly like the leper, like Bowers, and like the fucking _offensive_ Pomeranian monster. “Nothing? Like It wasn’t there at all.”

“Oh, that’s weirder,” Richie stage whispers, expression pinching into shapes, then leaning over into Eddie’s space with a narrowed, skeptical peer. “But no, really, you’ve met vampires?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, taking a bite out of the cupcake, then indulging a reflex to moan; holy _shit_ , he forgot how much he liked chocolate. He cannot believe he could’ve _died_ yesterday without knowing how good this tastes.

Richie makes an odd noise, then goes bizarrely quiet, visibly startled when Eddie looks over at him. He blinks wide behind his glasses, mouth opening, only to close it again without so much as a word.

“What?” Eddie says, sparing half a second to be embarrassed about talking with his mouth full, then remembering he’s talking to _Richie_. “It’s fucking good – eat yours and shut up.”

Richie promptly seems to unclench, looking down to his container and popping it open. He clears his throat, a little tightly, “So you, uh, weren’t lying about never eating chocolate?”

“Anything that could kill a wolf,” Eddie says, taking another small bite, savoring it a few seconds longer than the first. “Grapes, coffee, chocolate, onions, garlic, _xylitol_ – ”

Richie hums lowly, popping the horn off the unicorn confetti monstrosity disguised as a cupcake. He bites the end off, crunching into what is _hopefully_ just sugar. “Like your old allergy shit.”

“Yeah,” Eddie mutters, trying not to think about how much of that he had kept up with, as well, making most of his meals over the last twenty years round out to various types of steamed chicken and vegetable. “I _am_ actually lactose intolerant now, though; really fucking tragic.”

Richie tuts with a shake of his head, abruptly diving in to decimate a chunk of the cupcake in one ridiculous bite. He nods for a few seconds, then his brows going up. “Oh, damn. We got this in _Derry_?”

“You look like you ate a fucking rainbow shit,” Eddie says, pulled between disgust and amusement in that way only Richie can make him.

Richie offers a wide, nauseatingly colorful grin, then inhales sharply, abruptly scrambling for his phone with a peculiar look in his eyes. He stares at the blank screen for a beat, then unlocks it while glancing over to Eddie. “This is gonna be my chocolate, Spaghetti, and – and not just because my manager might murder me.”

Eddie watches Richie swallow a bite of pure frosting, then take a selfie with his tongue out, attaching it to a tweet that says ‘ _happy pride_!’. It takes a beat for him to realize what Richie even means by the chocolate thing, and then his brows go up. “Is this you _coming out_?”

Richie’s fingers stumble slightly on the screen while a flush spreads high across his cheeks. “Only if they solve the riddle.”

Eddie drags his teeth hard over his lip, then looks down at his cupcake while pulling a chunk out of the side. “Is your manager really going to get mad at you for that?”

“…Probably for the part where I didn’t use any of his ideas for it,” Richie says, locking his phone with a thumb and throwing it a little over-dramatically onto the bench. “I’ve pussied out about this like seventeen times over the last ten years.”

“Oh,” Eddie intones, grimacing slightly, though he’s not technically out, either, but he’s been more concerned over the years with hiding he’s a werewolf than that part of him. He has overheard, at least, enough office gossip to know that he probably doesn’t need to make an official _announcement_ ; it sounds like a lot of stupid pressure.

“It was all like magazines or talk shows!” Richie says, gesturing upward at the sky with a spinning hand. “I’m not _that_ famous.”

“You’ve got like a million followers,” Eddie says, opening his phone and shielding the screen slightly, so Richie won’t notice that he’s already following him. He just doesn’t want to hear the gloating, not that it’s a big deal; he just… he once thought one of Richie’s dumb backstage videos was funny, funnier than his standup, for which he now feels vindicated. He taps at Richie’s newest selfie, frowning slightly at the varied instant responses, none particularly judgmental, except maybe to Richie’s intelligence. “Who just think you don’t know when Pride is.”

“Shhhh, bad dog,” Richie says, reaching out and forcing Eddie’s phone flat down on his lap.

Eddie scowls and affectedly backhands Richie at the middle. “Do _not_ call me a fucking dog.”

“Ow,” Richie groans dramatically, bending over at the waist for a solid, exaggerated breath. He sits up and reaches for the cupcake on the dash, stuffing the rest of the unicorn monstrosity in his mouth and then doing the disservice of promptly resuming his babble. “These _are_ really good, though – here, I’ll eat the rest of your poison.”

“Fuck off,” Eddie says, turning away on the bench while crowding the other half of his cupcake to his chest, shielding it from Richie’s grab for it. He just wants to _savor_ it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie is pulling the chicken from the bag with both hands, sparing a short peer into the foggy container. “I haven’t had one of these in forever.”
> 
> “Are you kidding? This is for me,” Eddie snaps, hastily turning and reaching out to tug the roast chicken out of Richie’s hands, pointedly setting it on the bar away from him. He quickly rounds the other side again and pulls a stool out, only barely suppressing an urge to bodily shove Richie away. “You should have gotten your own.”
> 
> Richie starts to outright sputter, hands flapping at the chicken in disbelief. “My own entire chicken?”

The lobby of the Townhouse is just as quiet as when they left, as it’s been since they got here, and Eddie sets the grocery bag on the bar while going around the other side. He kneels down, opening drawers and pushing to the side bottles, only to find little more than three balled up, stained napkins and a gummy fork shoved behind a paring knife.

He groans under his breath, turning around and looking at the small bar sink; no soap or paper towels. Fuck. It will be better than nothing, though, so he steps forward toward the sink, hands out, only to hear a telltale rustling behind him.

Richie is pulling the chicken from the bag with both hands, sparing a short peer into the foggy container. “I haven’t had one of these in forever.”

“Are you kidding? This is for me,” Eddie snaps, hastily turning and reaching out to tug the roast chicken out of Richie’s hands, pointedly setting it on the bar _away_ from him. He quickly rounds the other side again and pulls a stool out, only barely suppressing an urge to bodily shove Richie away. “You should have gotten your own.”

Richie starts to outright sputter, hands flapping at the chicken in disbelief. “My own entire chicken?”

“Or whatever the fuck – didn’t you get apples?” Eddie says, popping off the top and inhaling deep against the aroma of greasy meat. He should get a plate, at least, and definitely wash his hands or get the wet-wipes upstairs… But an ache twists painful through his stomach, something pointedly feral flaring, and suddenly all he can think about is that he hasn’t eaten more than pure sugar in almost twenty-four hours and, oh yeah, he had to grow who knows how many organs back after being _impaled_ by a goddamned _alien_ _spider clown_.

“I’m surprised you’re even eating that,” Richie says, leaning in close with one elbow on the bar, demonstrably tapping at his chin in thought. “How many people have touched it, you think? Do they ever wipe down the rotisserie machine? I bet in the back, they don’t even – ”

“Beep _beep_ , Richie,” Eddie snaps, wrapping his fingers around the drumstick and easily pulling it free with a tug. “I’m not giving you any fucking chicken. You got a cupcake; you have fruit.”

Richie sighs dramatically, slumping onto the bar across folded arms with a pout.

“Shit, Eddie,” Bev greets with a laugh, her voice coming from the top of the stairs and the rest of her soon following, bearing a crooked grin and a cocked eyebrow. “You hungry?”

“Fuck off,” Eddie says, peeling off another piece of meat and shoving it in his mouth.

Ben peeks over Bev’s head, brows up and staring covetously at the remaining chicken. “What about us?”

Eddie rolls his eyes, shifting his elbows to bracket the container. “Christ, you sound like Richie.”

“You didn’t get _Richie_ anything?” Ben sounds honestly surprised, slipping past Bev and to the other side of Richie to peek into the bags.

“He was _with_ me,” Eddie says, watching Ben pull out an apple with an expression of disproportionate glee; is he going to orgasm over the fucking peaches, too? “He could’ve gotten something if he wanted.”

“I thought I was getting chicken,” Richie mutters sullenly, peeking over his arms and consequently wrenching his glasses askew across his brow. “But Kasp _bark_ here never learned to share.”

“I bought you ice cream like every day of every fucking summer,” Eddie snaps, tugging off the other drumstick and bitterly placing it into the lid, sliding it across the bar just to have some peace.

Richie is quiet for a beat, then a small, slightly devastating smile stretching at his lips; he slowly picks up the chicken, taking a bite while offering an assenting tilt of his head.

Eddie opens his mouth to continue, only to shudder, grimacing at the electronic pitch of an incoming call. “Answer your goddamn phone, Beverly.”

“What – oh!” Bev says, jumping slightly and looking down at her pocket as it starts to buzz in an even pattern. She pulls it out, hesitating just a beat with her thumb over the answer slider. “How did you know?”

“Can hear it sometimes,” Eddie mutters, looking back down and avoiding Ben’s overly interested peer over an apple core.

“Hello, this is Bev?” Bev answers, a twitch of a smile at the edge of her mouth.

“Hi, uh,” the voice on the other side is a little weirdly familiar, maybe not the voice so much as the slightly uptight quality. “Beverly? Patty said you called her from this number.”

Eddie looks up and stares hard at the phone, hand falling from the container and blood draining from his face, realizing with a strangled sense of disbelief from where he recognizes the tone.

“Eds?” Richie says quietly, knee knocking against Eddie's with a curious hum.

“Oh my god…” Bev says, looking up and making eye contact with Eddie, clearly aware that he’s been eavesdropping on the call. “ _Stan_?!”

“What?” Richie yelps, nearly dropping his hard-won chicken onto Eddie’s lap with a precarious lean.

“Hold on!” Bev continues, her thumb clumsily sliding across the screen, suddenly shaky, and holding out the phone between all of them. “I’m putting you on speaker.”

“Oh, great… Uh, yeah, it’s me.” Stan sounds tired and a little annoyed, which is so painfully just like him that Eddie has to swallow back a reflex to call him an uptight asshole. It’s really, truly _him_ , and this is what he sounds like now – alive and, apparently, well enough to be chagrined. “Hi. I guess.”

“Oh shit, _shit_ ,” Ben says, stumbling from behind the bar while rushing for the stairs, calling back over his shoulder. “I’ll get Bill!”

“Holy fuck, Stan the Man!” Richie says, his voice not particularly matching the playfulness of the words, nearly cracking at the edges. “You missed the fucking party!”

Eddie reaches out and smacks Richie lightly at the sternum, gesturing aggressively with his other hand; he gets an equally hostile gesture in return, but with both hands and a marked mistiness behind overlarge lenses.

“He’s gone!” Ben says, skidding back down into the lobby with a pained expression expression. He wrings his hands while he settles back next to the bar, gripping it with white knuckled hands. “I texted him, but I heard his phone in his room.”

“Bill being dramatic, again?” Stan says, his voice flat and markedly disappointed, but not devastatingly, “Should’ve known.”

“Stan, how?” Bev says, taking a shaky breath that has Ben immediately at her side, leaning in close with a hand over her arm. “Your wife said – she said you couldn’t…” She rolls her lips together, shoulders hunching inward. “That you were _gone_.”

“She talked to you before her father, uh…” Stan pauses, the silence drawing out awkwardly until he exhales an unintelligible mutter, then quietly clearing his throat. “He helped. He’s a…” He pauses, again, sighing heavy, “A necromancer. Which is, I guess, a thing.”

Eddie feels his mouth drop open slightly, a little reflexively disgusted, then belatedly wonders if that could be what the baker had been – it would explain the scent. He hadn’t thought of it, at the time, as all his prior experience with necromancers boiled down to a single encounter with one that he once stumbled upon in Queens when looking for a particular sort of pharmacist, and they had been downright _repulsive_.

“Like a – ” Ben sputters, his eyes darting back and forth between all of them, before landing back onto the phone. “Like D&D?”

Stan is quiet a moment, then his voice drops, familiarly dry. “Yeah, just like _D &D_.”

“We should start that up again.”

Eddie blinks twice, turning his head slightly to better stare at Richie from the corner of his eye.

“I’m better at Voices now!” Richie exclaims, a little too loud and wearing a slightly hysterical expression while gesturing at his own chest with both hands. “I could DM!”

Eddie stares for a few seconds longer, then slowly reaches out and squeezes at Richie’s forearm, wincing at the sour addition to his scent. He’s freaking out, obviously, but at least he hasn’t started doing any Voices or _thrown up_ , which seems to be something he does often these days.

Stan exhales an impatient wash of static into the speaker. “Anyway, Montrose – Patty’s father – he had a vision, or something, about how it wasn’t my time. So he brought me back and I… woke up. Just now.”

“Wow,” Ben says dazedly, looking sideways at Bev, who offers a tight, similarly uncertain smile.

“I – I am sorry,” Stan continues, voice faltering with pained sincerity, eyes surely downcast and mouth twisted in the way he used to look when speaking with that tone as a kid. “I don’t know what came over me. I was so scared… It felt like there wasn’t anything else to do.”

“It was Pennywise,” Bev says, rocking forward on her toes with evident urgency, as if she might be able to push the assurance through the phone. “I saw – he… _Anyone_ who didn’t want to come ended up… doing something like that, Stan. It was my nightmare for years.”

“Still, I – I wish I…” Stan falls silent a few seconds, breathing into the phone. “I’m glad you’re alright. Is everyone else okay?”

Richie scoffs loudly, “Uh, _sort of_ –”

“Yes, we’re all fine,” Eddie says sharply, glaring to the side and speaking loudly over Richie’s petulant approximation of denial. “There was a – a near miss, sort of, but – ”

“Is that Eddie? Thank _fuck_ ,” Stan interrupts, tone weighty, forcefully exhaling a breath that seems to contain multitudes. “When I woke up, I was so sure – ” He pauses abruptly, taking a few more breaths, then weakly clears his throat. “I think I had nightmares, too, Bev.”

Eddie feels his brows go up, a question forming at the tip of his tongue, but he bites it back, instead glancing to Bev and finding her grimacing in something that might be _empathy_. He swallows shallowly, lurching back against the bar; oh.

“I always thought you’d marry a nice Jewish girl,” Richie says, changing the subject a little too casually, leaning back on his stool and looking up at the ceiling with a grimacing slant to his mouth. “Not a… whatever a necromancer is – Catholic?”

“No, she is,” Stan says, sounding relieved at the diversion, his voice brightening by a measure at the mention of his wife. “Her mother’s side – raised mostly with her step father. I only met this dad once at our wedding twenty years ago and I didn’t think to ask about why he was kind of… extremely weird.”

Richie hums loud and long, turning his head and dropping it to look from the corner of his eye at the phone. “Man, are we completing a set or something? Zombie, wolf-man – what’s next? I feel like Mike is already Giles.”

“Wolf-man?” Stan repeats, sounding reluctant, as if anticipating the punchline to an especially dumb joke.

“Oh, did we not mention that? Eddie’s a _werewolf_ ,” Richie says, lifting his hand in a clawing gesture that’s entirely for Eddie’s benefit, paired with a stupid waggle of his brow over his lenses. “A dark creature of the _night_.”

Eddie reaches out and punches at Richie’s shoulder, rolling his eyes when Richie sways against the blow with a dramatic hunch like it was done with any sort of strength behind it. He catches sight again of the chicken behind him, hunger returning in wake of the shock Stan calling, and grabs it to pull in his lap.

Stan goes quiet for a long few seconds. “So how long before Richie is, too?”

“Shut the fuck up, Stan,” Eddie snaps, ignoring a flash of heat up across his face and glaring down at the phone rather than peeking at any of the present faces around him; it doesn’t help much, as he can still hear Bev’s little huff and Ben’s muted laugh behind his teeth.

“I wish we could see you,” Bev says, her mouth pursed sadly, until she abruptly grins and glances over to Ben, who blinks back, then takes a sharp breath and nods with some apparent understanding. She clears her throat, tapping at the edge of the phone with her thumb. “You know, if you’re comfortable – ”

Stan interrupts with a sharp cough. “I’m not coming to Derry.”

“We do _not_ want you to,” Richie says, leaning into Eddie’s shoulder, arm suddenly solid and present behind his back, as he affects a hoarse, hurried Voice that wouldn’t be out of place in Blair Witch. “According to Eddie’s super nose, th-the-there’s a person who is not a vampire but smells _dead_ here.”

“I might smell dead,” Stan says, quietly, the idea clearly not having occurred to him. “I don’t know.”

“It was a goddamn baker,” Eddie snaps, shoving Richie away from him and the phone, then rolling his eyes at Bev and Ben’s twin wide-eyed looks. “Richie’s overreacting. They sold fancy fucking cupcakes.”

“Cupcakes?” Ben asks, corner of his mouth twisting up in an odd smile while one of his brows goes up his forehead.

“I was going to say we could do _video_ – Ben was telling me about this software he uses at his company,” Bev interjects, eyes rolling good-naturedly between Eddie and Richie, then looking back down at the phone. “They’ll fight about anything.”

“That’s true,” Richie says, his voice lifting up at the end almost sing-song.

“Shut up,” Eddie snaps, sparing a glare sideways, then immediately regrets it; he hates how this idiot turns him into a fucking teenager.

Richie grins back, silently spreads his hands wide in triumph.

“You guys really haven’t – Oh, do I…” Stan pauses, as a woman starts speaking lowly in the background about paperwork; her voice is quiet, a little anxious, and sounds exactly like the woman who answered the phone days earlier as Patty Uris. “No, it’s fine, babylove.”

“Babylove?!” Richie crows, exhaling a loud laugh. “You _sap.”_

“Shut up, Richie,” Stan scolds flatly, his attention returning back to the phone, and Eddie wonders if it will ever stop being such a relief to hear him be the same as ever. “I apparently have to go tell some people why I’m not dead. I’ll call back soon, I should… I _want_ to talk to Bill and Mike. The video thing sounds good; I only know what Trashmouth looks like – I want to see if the rest of you aged just as bad.”

“Ouch,” Richie says, both rising and falling dramatically over his heart like he’s been shot. “Be sure to break that news to my millions of fans.”

Stan is quiet for a beat, then huffs, “Fuck, that’s so weird.”

“Tell me about it,” Eddie agrees, catching movement from the corner of his eye and turning to slap Richie’s hand away from the chicken.

“I’ll text you the details,” Ben says, leaning in toward the phone with a small, if bright smile.

“Thank you,” Stan says, as another voice starts to talk in the background of his call – a particularly humorless lawyer by the sound of it. “I really missed you guys.”

“It’s a great software,” Ben says, after the phone disconnects, looking between Richie and Eddie now, as if he really has to sell it. “I use it with all my satellite locations. I could definitely set up a dedicated room for us.”

Eddie raises an eyebrow and turns to share a look with Richie, who offers a gesture with his fingers and thumb rubbing circles.

“Richie,” Bev says, her voice low and just a little mocking. “You own two houses,”

Richie’s hand drops as he looks away from Eddie to scowl at Bev. “How do you know that?”

Bev doesn’t answer for a marked beat, then laughs while her eyes curl up at the edges. “I didn’t.”

“Oh, whatever,” Richie says, waving dismissively, slumping back onto the bar with both elbows and a melodramatic sigh. “One’s an apartment.” He looks down, picking at a loose string on the edge of his shirt, then abruptly his eyes go wide and he dives off his chair toward Bev, grasping her by the shoulders. “Holy shit, you have to call him back!”

Bev looks back, startled, “What – why?!”

“I just realized!” Richie says, the urgency in his expression suddenly warring for space with an obnoxious smile. “He’s a Jew who rose from the dead!”

“No,” Bev denies, swiftly ducking under Richie’s arms and dodging his attempts to grab for her phone. She scrambles around Ben, using him as a shield while covering her mouth with her free hand and trying to hide her laughter. “ _Richie_! You can make the joke later!”

Ben ignores them both to lean forward, peeking at Eddie’s lap with raised brows. “So we really can’t have any of that, Eddie?”

“Alright, I’m fucking done,” Eddie says, standing from the stool while turning to pick up the lid of the container. He glances back and forth, then heads toward a pair of double doors in the back; he _knows_ there’s a patio or something out there, he just needs to find out how to get to it and he can eat in peace.

“ _Eds_ ,” Richie whines, predictable like clockwork.

The double doors open out onto a surprisingly ornate wooden deck, somehow ship-like, the sight promptly recovering a faint memory of riding past it as a kid while looking up at diners and inexplicably feeling lesser. Its stain is markedly faded and a little cracked, but there’s still tables sitting under black umbrellas with iron outdoor chairs evenly set around them. It’s a lot disturbing, really, how much of the Townhouse seems to be taken care of without a single actual person present to do the upkeep; it reeks of _some_ kind of magic, but the last thing Eddie wants to do is think about it.

He settles onto a table near a set of stairs that lead down onto a lawn. It’s getting later into the evening, but he feels sun warm his back the minute he sits down, barely glancing sideways while Richie slumps into a chair beside him with the bag of peaches. He expects him to say something about Stan, or beg for more chicken, but instead he just sits quietly, intermittently throwing pits out onto the lawn.

Richie eventually takes a deep, telling breath, one hand curled into a loose fist on the glass table, the wrapped tight around a knee that’s bouncing so rapidly he may as well be _generating_ energy. “So… _so_.”

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees, reaching into the container again, only to pause, caught on the sight of grease on his hands. He presses his lips together and swallows hard while his thoughts promptly spiral, suddenly only able to see the germs that could have been on the container and the table he sits at, the bar in the lobby, the dirty fork under the sink; then further back to the rot-smell of the baker and what they could’ve had hidden in the back, what transfer they could have carried from there, to the containers, to the _food_. He realizes he’s started to wheeze when he stands with a clumsy shove of his knees into the chair. “Shit. I – I don’t h-have wipes.”

Richie’s hand wraps solid around his shoulder to gently push him back down. “I’ll get them,” he says, squeezing briefly before letting go. “Upstairs?”

Eddie nods unevenly, still staring at his now-shaking hands, and forces his eyes closed while trying to think about his breathing. He starts counting up and then down, fingers tightening into fists at a panicked urge to reach for his inhaler; he doesn’t have it, he burned it – he never really needed it. He’s fine; he’s practically immortal, Richie said, he shouldn’t… He can’t really still be such a _coward_.

“Hey, Eds,” Richie murmurs, reappearing as a wet wipe lands in Eddie’s open, upturned hands. “Here.”

“Thanks,” Eddie chokes, hurriedly wiping himself down with jerky, practiced movements over his palms and in between his fingers.

“I was wondering when you would realize it,” Richie says mildly, sitting now markedly closer, leg pressed up against Eddie’s in a quiet comfort that used to be so commonplace from swing-sets to lunch tables. “You lasted a while.”

“Fuck you,” Eddie says, looking down at the almost bare carcass of the chicken and realizing he had picked through it like a fucking animal without even thinking about it, and Richie just sat there the whole time. “I was… I got so damned hungry I wasn’t even thinking.”

“Yeah,” Richie says, reaching out and poking at the container with a pair of fingers. “You totally mauled it, man.”

Eddie ducks his chin at against mortified heat across his neck and looks away from the chicken, only to find himself fixating at the rise and fall of his chest. He flexes his jaw as his thoughts veer in a different direction – to his recent near death, the pain, the surety he was taking his last breaths, the blood all over his hands, the fear in Richie’s face, only to be saved by the fact he’s a fucking _monster_ himself.

“Eds,” Richie says, audibly uncertain, his touch brief and light at Eddie’s shoulder. “Do you need –”

“What is with this, Richie?” Eddie says, looking over and hearing his voice pitch upward, disappointed when Richie’s hand slips away off his shoulder. “I should be fucking dead! How many other people were killed – and I get to be okay because _I’m_ a monster? Even Stan died because of that fucking clown.”

Richie stares back, eyes wide as ever behind his glasses, while his face rapidly blanches pale. “It didn’t, Eds – he’s okay.”

“I know, and I’m happy he is, I just – ” Eddie reaches up and digs his hands into his hair, curling into the chair with determinedly deep breaths. “You fucking heard him, Rich – he had dreams like Bev and was _surprised_ I was alive!”

“Shut the fuck up,” Richie snaps, a burnt tinge seeping from his pores and bittering his scent. “You just skipped another shitty stay in Derry Home – that’s it.”

Eddie drags his teeth over his lip and looks up, furrowing his brow; it doesn’t sound like a platitude, it sounds like Richie really believes that, despite the fact his cracked glasses are proof enough that he’d been _witness_ to the worst of it. “Richie, you can’t – ”

“I can! I don’t want to hear it,” Richie interrupts, looking away while taking a shaky breath, throwing another pit out onto the grass with a deep scowl. “What I _can’t_ believe you’d say that shit to me, Eds. And fuck you, you’re not a monster.”

“Then what the fuck am I?” Eddie snaps, gesturing wide and nearly upending the container out onto the table, and caring very little about it despite Richie’s wide-eyed glance. “Alright, since maybe since I take shit for it, it’s a fucking disease, I guess, or – or a virus, so I’m just like the fucking leper –”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it!” Richie says, his voice cracking a little, hand reaching out and stopping short of actually wrapping around Eddie’s arm, but the warmth is still there, hovering and present like the bitter tang of frustration in his scent. “Fuck, Eddie, okay maybe you’re a _sort of_ monster but it’s not a bad thing, you’re just you; you’re only a monster in the way you’ve always been, just a little more fuzzy. You’re like Teen Wolf.”

Eddie rolls his eyes hard, hating a little that being compared to a shitty movie from the Eighties actually makes him feel better. “Teen Wolf fucking sucked.”

“How fucking dare you, Spaghetti,” Richie says, tone shifting into some still-tense, plainly forced attempt at flippant anger. “We wore that tape out!”

“Because _you_ liked Michael J Fox!” Eddie argues back, embarrassed to suddenly remember why _he_ hadn’t liked Michael J Fox all that much, and how it hadn’t had a lot to do with the quality of his films; the fact he knows now that Richie probably had a _for real_ crush on Marty McFly does not help the memory much. “And I don’t even look like that, thank fucking Christ.”

“Oh man,” Richie says, leaning into Eddie’s chair with his elbow, most of the tension fading from his posture with a slow, gradual exhale. He clicks his tongue a few seconds, then grunts, “Yeah, I guess you’re more Underworld?”

Eddie has to make an effort not to lean closer into Richie, trying just to let the scent placate him. “That movie is so stupid.”

“You’ve seen it?” Richie asks, blinking wide and brows going up behind his frames.

Eddie narrows his eyes, staring back hard while making a point to tilt his head. “Are you serious right now? The ads were enough.”

Richie makes a contradictory noise, as a grin sweeps across his face. “We _definitely_ have to watch it now. All of them – there’s four.” He lifts a hand to demonstrate, then pulls out his thumb to open his entire palm in evident excitement. “And a fifth one is going to come out soon.”

Eddie shakes his head hard, looking to glare out across the lawn. “Abso-fucking-lutely not, dickhead.”

“What did you mean when you said you took _shit_ for it?” Richie asks, his voice dropping again and markedly awkward. “Like pills? Like when it happened, did your mom –”

“No, I – they’re real,” Eddie interrupts, recognizing the skeptical quirk at the edge of Richie’s mouth, knowing that he’s thinking of the endless barrage of gaz- _placebos_. He has a brief impulse to run upstairs and grab the pills, shove them and their weirdly glowing specks under Richie’s nose, but then he would have to move out from under his arm. “They’re wolfsbane infused and made by an actual witch that calls himself a _specialized_ pharmacist.”

“And you’re not just… aspirating,” Richie says, as delicate as he ever gets about anything, though still plainly unconvinced, if he’s bringing up Eddie’s determination of days earlier to use an aspirator for lungs that are so healthy they literally regenerate.

“Yes, I actually need them, fuck off,” Eddie snaps, feeling irked heat flushing up his neck. “Otherwise, I can’t think while I’m shifted, alright? It’s like my mind is separate from my own body and I’m just…” He briefly grimaces, trying to think of a sane way to describe the sensation of his body wandering around at the direction of garbage impulses while disconnected from his rational mind; a few days ago, he thought of it as the wolf – the _wolf_ , not him – but now he’s all but confirmed fighting It that the feralness at the back of his mind is more akin to some kind of emotion, something he needs to control but doesn’t necessarily control him. “Do you remember when we decided to race turtles at the quarry? And you kept cheating and nudging yours in the right direction, and it would go like it was supposed to for like two inches, then get distracted again?”

“A reptile after my own heart,” Richie says, briefly lifting his hand to touch preciously over said heart. “But yeah?”

“Like that,” Eddie says, slumping slightly in his chair and, more than a little deliberately, closer into the crook of Richie’s arm. “But it’s my own fucking body trying to follow instincts or whatever. The supplements keep that from happening – everyone fucking takes them.” He rolls his lips together, then sighs, glancing sideways up at Richie with a grimace. “At least, that’s what I was told. I don’t… I avoid talking to other werewolves.”

“Wait, so,” Richie lifts his free hand, turning it back and forth in some evident thought. “So this morning when you said that the guy – wolf, whatever – who attacked you was on coke? That wasn’t a weird joke?”

“No,” Eddie admits, glancing away with a short turn of his head and scratching at the back of his neck, refusing to think too hard about his fingers brushing up just slightly at Richie’s elbow. “I actually talked to him. Sort of. He sent me an apology letter as part of his NA program.”

Richie is quiet for a few seconds, then exhales a sullen grumble. “You’re really destroying my image of the paranormal right now, Spaghetti Head,” he says, sounding unduly disappointed at the continuing revelation. “Are the only really scary things out there clowns? Because that’s what I’m hearing.”

Eddie snorts quietly, tempted to mention the vampire he once met from Queens who was both great and _terrible_ at killing people, but he doesn’t know if he would really call them scary; or mention the ghost who made him set a record for signing and breaking a lease agreement, but had really just been sort of the most annoying roommate in the world. “Don’t fucking call me that – and I think Pennywise was technically some sort of eldritch god alien? Mike was not fucking clear.”

Richie clicks his tongue, head lolling to the side while his eyebrows go up. “Totally Giles.”

“I never actually watched that, either,” Eddie says, knowing exactly what is going to come of the admission after the Underworld comment; he’s only a little averse to it.

“Oh man,” Richie says, his particular crooked grin appearing at the edge of his mouth. “You’re just stacking shit up for us to watch.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, sinking a little deeper into Richie’s side with a short turn of his head and an entirely indulgent inhale. He’s not sure what to make of the slight earthy tinge, it seems somehow content – peaceful, almost.

“I do have, like, a weird question,” Richie says, pausing a beat before releasing a laugh that bears a markedly awkward edge. “Maybe related to the werewolf thing – have you been _smelling_ me?”

Eddie closes his eyes for a beat, momentarily wishing he could just sink into the ground. “Shut up, asshole.”

“Oh.” Richie goes quiet for a length, seconds drawing into almost a minute, then clears his throat, scuffing his shoe loudly against a whorl in the deck. “Why?”

“You just smell good,” Eddie admits, glancing up to Richie and then back down, heat flashing across his face like he’s fourteen not forty.

Richie is quiet for a worryingly long moment, then huffs, dipping his head closer to Eddie and peeking up over his frames before pushing them up with a pair of fingers. “Really? I barely even like, used soap in the shower earlier. And I forgot deodorant. In LA.”

Eddie folds his mouth into a grimace, only a little exaggerated; they were in a goddamn _sewer_. “Why the hell would you tell me that?”

Richie shrugs, throwing his hands out, “I dunno, because I _shouldn’t_ smell good?”

“It’s not like that,” Eddie says, rolling his eyes and looking to the side opposite Richie, eyeing a teetering umbrella at another table. “It’s not like you smell like some cologne shit, you just smell like a person who is you.”

Richie makes a curious noise, somewhat oddly… _hopeful_? “And that’s good?”

“Yeah, actually,” Eddie says, looking back to Richie with a weak attempt at a smirk, and surprised to see Richie’s expression lacking any sort of mocking edge. He actually seems more interested, than anything else, which is its own sort of annoying. “Shocking, I know.”

Richie glances abruptly to the side, then drags his teeth across his lower lip while his focus turns back to Eddie. “I bet you’d be really good at hide and seek.”

Eddie blinks rapidly at the non sequitur. “I’m fucking forty, Rich.”

“I’m just saying,” Richie says, abruptly shoving back and away from the table, balling up the bag previously full of fruit and throwing it at the chicken.

“Where are you going?” Eddie asks, leaning forward and putting trash in before resealing the container.

“How far do you think you could… track me, like are you a blood hound?” Richie asks, turning around on a heel and now walking backward down the stairs off the deck.

Eddie finds himself up and following when Richie teeters to the side, clumsy bastard nearly stumbling on the last step. “I don’t fucking know?” He snaps, staring down at Richie from three steps up. “And stop calling me a damned _dog_.”

“Just give me like,” Richie rocks his head back and forth, eyes sweeping to the side to look down the alley with an odd thoughtfulness. “Twenty minutes.”

“Twenty – _what_?” Eddie, glancing backward at the Townhouse with pointed gesture of his hand toward the door. “What if Stan calls back?”

“Twenty minutes!” Richie repeats, turning around to start walking out toward the main street, hands shoving into his hoodie pocket.

Eddie watches him until he turns down the street and disappears, a little in disbelief of himself for playing along. He glances back to the table, leaning down to grab the chicken to throw away, rolling his eyes while scoffing under his breath. “Dick.”

The worst part is Eddie _can_ track him, following Richie’s scent through Derry like a fucking lame-ass pet until he ends up at a familiar bridge. He slows as he approaches Richie, who leans on the fence, his eyes dropping and narrowing at the tense line across Richie’s mouth and feeling his own press down to match.

“Hey,” Eddie says, glancing affected over his shoulder at the road down into Derry, quirking a brow slightly while looking back to Richie. “You got pretty far.”

“I can jog,” Richie says, a conspicuously awkward beat passing before he exaggeratedly wheezes against the railing.

Eddie huffs through his nose, peeking around further trying to figure out what might be making Richie so edgy, and eventually his eyes drop to find a familiar carving just next to Richie’s thigh. “Oh.”

“I don’t know if you uh,” Richie clears his throat in a way that sounds like a croak, pointing at the initials. “Ever noticed this?”

“I did, yeah, a couple times,” Eddie says, hoping the _of fucking course_ is heard loud and clear. He’s a little embarrassed to remember that he used to bike past it just to imagine that like Ron and Erin were Richie and Eddie, and he had thought it had just been there forever – or, at least, since he started thinking about it that way. He looks at Richie again, glancing across his tight, avoidant expression and inhaling that sour smell of panic. “Did _you_ …? When did you do this?”

“Twenty-seven years ago,” Richie mutters, reaching up and scratching at his cheek, eyes firmly fixed on the dirt road. “Give or take a few months.”

“Shit,” Eddie says, heart thudding against his ribs, heavy enough it feels almost like it might burst from his chest. “You never said anything?”

“I guess I was…” Richie takes a breath, face somehow twisting into an expression even more anxious. “Scared. But I, uh, am now?”

Eddie swallows hard, looking back at the carving, and realizes with some wonder why Ben may have been so commiserating at the restaurant. “Is this like your yearbook page?”

“Yup,” Richie rasps, wetting his lips and clearing his throat, looking markedly up and over Eddie’s head. “Never quite fit in the ol’ wallet the same.”

Eddie offers a weak laugh, moving forward and reaching out to press his fingers down across the fading marks while his chest briefly seems to swell with emotion. He glances sideways, heartsick at the way Richie won’t look back, and closes his eyes a brief moment before opening his mouth. “At least you didn’t burn it.”

Richie agrees with a twitching not-quite grimace at the corner of his mouth. “Could be why it didn’t work?”

“Or it was all just bullshit,” Eddie disagrees, flexing his jaw for a tense beat before taking a deep breath, reaching out and pressing his fingers lightly to the inside of Richie’s arm. “I’m going to do something fucking weird.”

“Weirder than this?” Richie says, glancing down and laughing tightly, plainly referring to the carving, as if a rite of passage for half the teens in town is at all odd compared to literally any major event of the last 72 hours.

“Uh yeah,” Eddie says, turning quick and tipping forward up on his toes, shoving his nose into the enticing hollow just under Richie’s jaw. He waits a beat for Richie to push him away, to protest at all, then slowly turns his head in deeper while Richie relaxes under him; the scent isn't near as strong as it would be in Richie's pit or his chest, or fuck, his groin, but it’s still fucking amazing, driving Eddie to a previously unexplored level of werewolf bullshit.

“Oh,” Richie intones, his slowly hands coming up and hovering, fingertips brushing at Eddie’s shoulders. He takes a sharp breath when Eddie opens his mouth, arching while teeth scrape against against his skin in something slightly less innocent. “That smell thing still not a joke?”

“It’s so fucked,” Eddie mumbles, nipping into Richie’s stubbled skin; it’s so crazy how this feels almost the same as it always did, only now it’s actual scent, rather than just being preoccupied with making sure that some comforting _RichieandEddie_ feeling was enveloping both of them. “I think it might be pheromones or some bullshit.”

“Do people, uh…” Richie pauses, his throat bobbing under Eddie’s mouth. “Have them?”

“Shut up,” Eddie mumbles, reluctantly pulling back and catching Richie’s wide eyes, another impulse crossing him with determination. “Can I – I do something else?”

“Sure,” Richie says, a flush noticeably blooming up his neck. “Sí, no problemo, Señor Kasp – ”

Eddie shoves Richie against the fence, hands curling around his hips, and presses his mouth to Richie’s before he can render himself _entirely_ unkissable. At first, Richie actually jumps, as if startled, kissing back tremblingly, then hungrily, soon loud and groaning, easily opening up when Eddie eagerly parts his lips. His hands land light on Eddie’s hips, then heavier, pulling him in closer, and closer, until the fence creaks precariously as they tip heavily onto it.

“Eds,” Richie murmurs, retreating with barely a breath against his lips, “This better not be pity.”

“Dumbass,” Eddie says, pulling back a few inches proper to better look Richie in the oversize lenses. The frames had only moments before had been digging just a bit uncomfortable into his face, which _somehow_ he had never imagined when he though about kissing Richie. “Whenever have I given you a pity anything?

Richie takes a short breath, gaze dropping to the narrow slip of ground between them. “Today,” he says, eyes darting back up with particularly outlandish triumph. “That cupcake. You wanted to eat that chicken in the _store_.”

Eddie opens his mouth, then closes it, dropping his head and pressing his forehead into Richie’s collarbone with a huff. “Shut up – that doesn’t count.”

“Sure, sure,” Richie says, hands slipping more solid down against Eddie’s hips, thumbs pressing distractingly into his pelvis.

“Was everyone else even _really_ busy?” Eddie asks, peeking up as a thought crosses his mind, only to gets side tracked at the sight of a huge mark on the side of Richie’s neck, reddened and worried by the earlier attention.

Shit.

He should _not_ feel so proud of it.

“I may have exaggerated Bill,” Richie admits, his mouth already twitching with an imminent joke. “He _was_ on the phone with a director, but he wasn’t struck by a muse – ” His voice drops, easing into some startlingly polished version of British Guy. “Poor lad looked like he was at the gallows.”

Eddie forces his eyes away from the mark with a snort. “That explains why he left his phone.”

Richie hums and dips his head again, softly capturing Eddie’s mouth with a shallow breath, gradually pulling Eddie in even closer by the hips. It’s odd how everything he’s doing is so careful, nerves in every action, so unlike him, but that earthy scent is back, a little sharper, and Eddie bites at Richie’s lip to make it flare. He drags his hands down Richie’s shoulders, slipping inside his jacket and toying at a button on the seam of his shirt, only for the fence to creak again when Richie stumbles sharply away from Eddie and backs into it.

“Richie?” Eddie says, blinking rapidly, then belatedly hears a car behind him rumbling down the narrow road. He steps forward to let them pass, turning to hug the fence next to Richie, and feels heat across his face and his fingers trembling, though the driver doesn’t look twice at them.

“Shit,” Richie says, breathing hard, face blanched while he looks at the car passing by, his hands firmly in fists at his sides. “Sorry, I – I hate this place, Eds.”

“Come on,” Eddie says, reaching out and tugging at the hem of Richie’s jacket, then turning back around toward the road. “Stan was going to call.”

“I know it – I’m sorry, fuck,” Richie stammers, his boots audibly slipping against the gravely road in his haste. His hand briefly touches at Eddie’s arm, skating off his sleeve with a timorous press and retreat. “Fuck, did I fuck this up?”

“ _No_ , Rich,” Eddie says, pausing on his next step and swallowing back his own nerves while lifting his hand to squeeze at Richie’s palm for a beat, reluctantly letting him go while continuing back to the main street. “I get it. I lived here, too.

Richie doesn’t respond for a few seconds, and when he does, his voice is subdued. “Yeah.”

Eddie nearly finds himself walking toward the Derry High, his mind largely distracted, threatening to take him down old paths by rote. He glances backward when they hit the first sidewalks, catching Richie looking, and blinks back with a swallow and twitch of a smile that feels like a revelation. He thinks he might actually get to have this, might get a repeat of this morning, falling asleep knowing Richie was present and safe, and then the afternoon, waking to the scent of _them_ against the pillows.

He’s thinks Richie might appreciate it, as well, remembering with an ache the nightmare that had woken them both. He feels an odd sort of guilt about it, a squeeze at his center, knowing he can’t go back and change it – can’t take the pain from either of them.

“So _like_ … I smell super good?” Richie asks, breaking the silence, and another glance backward reveals while rubbing back and forth at the front of his neck, unknowingly sweeping back and forth over the bite. “Am I werewolf catnip?”

“No,” Eddie drawing his tone out flat with a scoff, firmly ignoring the heat across his ears. “It’s just, I don’t know, a – ”

“ _Oooh_ , hold the phone,” Richie interrupts, hands dropping back to his sides and offering what is nearly an obnoxious shock jock Voice, as if he truly couldn’t help himself but made an effort to suppress it. “So just to you?”

Eddie presses his lips together, fleetingly considering a lie. “Probably.”

“ _Probably_?” Richie repeats, grin splitting across his face.

Eddie exhales hard through his nose, looking forward to the sidewalk in front of them. “Congrats, you won this totally useless sweepstakes.”

“Hey, now,” Richie disagrees, his arm slipping across Eddie’s back and over his shoulder with a noticeable hesitance, though it soon tightens into a familiar wrench. “It’s the most important one! I’d rather have won you than fucking Mega Millions.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, a flush burning up his neck at the earnest tone. “That’s lotto.”

“What the fuck ever, Eds,” Richie says, his tone abruptly dropping into something more firm. “Seriously, though, it’s kind of _always_ been more than a crush to me, even when I was basically a rugrat I knew you were more than that, but I… I didn’t expect anything out of saying, you know – ”

“Richie,” Eddie tries to interrupt, mostly at the surge of emotion welling at the back of his throat.

“I just – I had to show you because you almost died?” Richie says, his voice pitching toward a choke, leaning heavier on Eddie with his hand flattening closer over his chest. “And if you had, then I – It would’ve stayed a fucking secret. Fucking clown would’ve won.”

“I’m glad you showed me,” Eddie says quietly, reaching up and squeezing at Richie’s hand with a fleeting, comfortable thump into his chest.

Richie hums low, almost shyly, but it gradually winds up into something predictably more teasing. “I’m _really_ glad you’re a real life furry.”

“God, shut the fuck up,” Eddie snaps, shoving at Richie and briefly mourning at the loss of contact, at least until Richie squeezes right back into his side. “Stan’s a fucking zombie.”

“ _Right_?” Richie says, tilting his head while tapping demonstrably at his chin with a low tut. “I wonder if it’s like Death Becomes Her.”

Eddie snorts and grimaces at the same time, reluctantly imagining it. “Even if it’s not, at least we know what to give him for Hanukkah.”

“Spray paint in eight shades of flesh,” Richie says, gesturing out with a pinched hand in front of both of them. “Perfetto.”

Eddie listens to Richie proceed to quote the end of the movie in different Voices, all the while picking at his nails with his thumb like he’s trying to get it to fall off, and ducks his head to hide a budding smile. “I so hate that I’m attracted to you.”

Richie’s commentary stutters into an exhale that’s more a squeaking sort of giggle, summarily pressing close into Eddie’s back for a brief, electrifying moment. “You can’t just say that – you trying to kill me?”

Eddie feels like preening at the unabashed delight in Richie’s voice. “Sounds like that would solve my problem.”

Richie laughs again, squeezing at Eddie’s shoulder before letting go to bound up the Townhouse stairs in front of them. He waits at the door, posing like a cartoonish doorman with one hand at the handle and the other straight down his side, bowing ridiculously when Eddie gets close enough that he might enter.

Eddie reaches out, quickly grabbing at Richie’s arm before he can pull open the door all the way. He takes a breath when Richie blinks down at him, lifting his chin, and hopes his next words don’t sound too earnest. “Do you have any shows soon?”

“Uh, I think so?” Richie says, losing the pose and letting go of the door with a glance somewhere in the middle distance, eyes narrowing briefly before looking back to Eddie. “Technically, Reno next Friday and Saturday, if I’m not… cancelled.”

Eddie nods, probably a little to quickly, rolling his lips together. “I was going to go back to New York tonight.”

“Oh,” Richie says, markedly wilting, his arm even going limp in Eddie’s hold; he’s the absolute picture of disappointment, and a familiar one, making Eddie promptly recover a melancholy memory of when he had to tell Richie that his mom nailed the screen to his window frame.

“I’m trying to ask you to come with me, numbnuts,” Eddie says, tugging sharply and dropping his hand to take a hold around Richie’s, squeezing hard at his fingers. “So?”

“Oh,” Richie says, blinking rapidly before his eyes light up, grin breaking out across his face into a veritable beam. “Fuck yeah. Who cares if I have shows?”

“Uh, me, and _you_ probably fucking should,” Eddie says, furrowing his brow and hearing irritation easily enter his tone. “It’s your damned job.”

“Yeah, but like, I… I didn’t even write the sets,” Richie mutters, wincing plainly and hunching his shoulders, fingers threatening to pull away from Eddie only to tighten back up. “And I’m kind of over that.”

“Is this going to become a midlife crisis?” Eddie asks, only half-joking, tilting his head and forcing Richie to look him in the eye.

“Maybe!” Richie says, feigning excitement with a truly pained-looking expression, brow furrowing and jaw tightening, clearly having just realized it. “Is that going to be too much for you, Spaghetti Head?”

Eddie eyes Richie for a beat, already knowing with something innate, and a little worryingly feral, there’s nothing Richie could do that would be too much. “No, you can have it at my place.”

“Neat,” Richie says, a smile weakly across his face, voice dropping to a conspiratorial tone. “Steve will never find me.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, reaching for the door with a tug. “I hope that’s not a bookie.”

“Hah! Sort of,” Richie says, tone lilting upward like it was supposed to be a joke, but it falls a little flat. “But he – whoa, wait.”

Eddie glances over his shoulder and grimaces when he sees that Richie has stopped in front of a mirror at the middle of the arctic entry. He takes a step back through the inner door, sighing through his nose while Richie starts swiping at his neck with a look of disbelief.

“Oh wow, you… Huh,” Richie trails off, leaning closer and peering at his reflection while tracing the darkening mark with a finger. “Got me.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, a little irritated at himself for how much he just… really, _really_ likes the way it looks, sharing very little of Richie’s obvious incredulity – the fact that anyone could see it just makes that feralness inside him resonate something dangerously close to satisfaction. “I told you I was going to do it.”

Richie hums lowly and visibly presses harder into the mark, then his eyes go abruptly wide while he turns on Eddie with an awful smirk and too-high raise of an eyebrow. “Holy shit, is _this_ what Stan meant?”

“Okay, I take it all back,” Eddie says, stomping further into the lobby with a short shake of his head and entirely too reluctant to admit that probably _was_ the truth of it. “Congratulations, you’ve effectively fouled years of feelings with that eyebrow – hope you enjoy Nevada.”

“ _Eddie Spaghetti_ ,” Richie warbles, reaching out with grasping hands, though making no effort to actually keep Eddie from walking off.

Eddie does stop short when he catches a huddle at the bar, all of the Losers around it and now staring over their shoulders at him. “Oh, hey,” he says, glancing back and forth between their faces, then stumbling forward when Richie slams into his back; he exhales a growl while reaching back and swatting him at the hip with the heel of his hand. “Can you fucking stop for one goddamn minute?”

Richie exhales an affected sigh, one hand over his heart and feigning sorrow. “You know I cannot.”

“They back?” A voice says, tinny from a speaker and ostensibly from a tablet laid out on the bar. “I can hear them.”

Eddie ignores the amused looks of the others while Richie and he get closer, looking down at the tablet to confirm Stan’s face on it – he looks tired and older, but there’s that curly hair and sardonic look. “You fucks could’ve texted – we wanted to see him, too.”

Bill hums a frustratingly knowing noise of denial, glancing pointedly to Richie’s neck. “No one wanted to interrupt – ”

“Stan!” Richie exclaims, then offers a too-loud crack of laughter. “Nice specs, four-eyes.”

“You guys really haven’t changed,” Stan says, dryly, his eyes flicking from Richie over to Eddie, plainly studying him, quiet until a quirk appears at the corner of his mouth. “Oh hey, Eddie – what big teeth you have.”

“Fuck off,” Eddie snaps, rolling his eyes at the badly suppressed laughter around him, though none of it is really all that taunting, instead distinctly surrounding him in something like contentment. The feeling is buoyant, holding him up and rousing a reluctant smile of his own, and maybe he hadn’t been exaggerating to Richie earlier – maybe it _is_ a pack thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be honest, my image of werewolf!Eddie is inspired by this [incredibly specific skyrim mod](https://twitter.com/ezlebe/status/1304220614073360384?s=20), which is just a classic werewolf look.
> 
> The end of the doc is literally ' End? ' so, take that as you will...
> 
> Also, the baker wasn't anyone special??? But you could also imagine he's Don, who wasn't going to move to New York because he's got this hipster cupcake business, and is now picking up an old family tradition for obvious reasons.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, everything I write can basically be summed up as throwing a dart board at tropes. 
> 
> I can also be found on twitter [ @ ezlebe](https://twitter.com/ezlebe?lang=en)


End file.
